Not handled with care

Manoj Jain, Owner, Maniratnam Jewellers, New Bombay

A few months ago a customer bought a pair of antique stone-studded bangles. He returned to us recently with the bangles in a terrible shape. The stones had dropped and the bangles had bent. He was furious, he accused us of giving him a poor quality pair. He was being extremely nasty to the salespeople. He wanted us to make him new bangles. I stepped in, tried to reason with him that we could repair the bangles but not replace them. After all it was not our fault. The bangles had been misused and that’s why within a month they had broken. I tried to tell him that kundan jewellery shouldn’t be used for daily wear and probably that’s the mistake that was made. However, he refused to listen to us. He stood firm on his ground that he wanted a new pair made. The matter was not resolved on the first day and dragged for few more days. Every time the client returned he wanted us to do his bidding. As the matter was not moving forward and the client was adamant, we decided, a bit reluctantly, to make new bangles for him. We had to incur a little loss but there was no other way. This time we made only gold bangles for him. The reason behind giving in was that I didn’t want to lose a client. A year has passed since that incident and the client has become a regular one now.